Smoking Ban violates privacy, rights
By G. Michael Dobbs
Managing Editor
I'm not much of a smoker. I've never tried cigarettes. I have a cigar a couple of times a year outside where it won't stink up the house. My father had quit smoking before I was born and my mother never smoked.
My wife doesn't smoke. My foster daughter doesn't and I hope my grand daughter never starts.
All of this is to say I'm not an advocate of smoking at all and yet I think Springfield's Public Health Council and the corresponding bodies in Holyoke, Chicopee and Agawam did something with which I can't agree: they all banned smoking in private clubs.
The argument I heard the other night was that the health dangers of smoking trumped the rights of individuals who are members of private clubs. Smoking creates severe health problems, the members of the Council all said. A ban would help protect club employees from second hand smoke as well.
Now I'm all in favor of seat belt laws. I think recycling bottles is just fine, too. A lot of people in the Commonwealth fought both measures despite the public good these laws created.
I think that laws that govern how one person's behavior can affect the public are mostly good for us. Yeah, I'm a liberal.
I do think, though, that laws that dictate private lawful behaviors cross a line.
I don't care what you do in your own house, as long it's legal. Don't tell me what to do in my house, either.
And private clubs should be treated in the same way.
Maybe now I'm a libertarian.
No one holds a gun to your head and tells you to be an Elk. If you're interested in joining you know that part of that experience might include smokers in the bar at the Lodge. Your membership is consent to activities such as smoking.
If you really don't like smoking, you probably wouldn't join and would seek another activity. There are plenty of ways to seek fellowship and do something positive for your community.
Adults can smoke. It's legal in certain places. No one at last week's meeting expressed any opposition to the idea that smoking has been banned from workplaces, bars, restaurants and other public areas. They just wanted to be allowed to smoke in their private members-only clubs.
Here's the great unsaid: our society includes behaviors that are dangerous and stupid, but are so ingrained they are legal. No one wants to debate the overall legality of smoking, knowing full well a prohibition would be a disaster.
So we must tolerate the habit. Kids shouldn't be allowed to smoke and taking it out of the public arena makes sense. Allowing in private areas makes sense, also.
The decision now politicizes the issue. It has become an argument of "rights."
Here is what I would have done if I had been a member of a Board of Health in one of these communities: I would have met with representatives of the various organizations and asked to run smoking education and other health programs at their locations.
I bet they would have agreed. Perhaps some would have considered going smoke free.
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